


Desperate Measures

by firefly_quill



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Feelings, Friends to Lovers, Hanzo Shimada is a Little Shit, M/M, Swearing, a sprinkle of angst with a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25234930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefly_quill/pseuds/firefly_quill
Summary: Hanzo joins Overwatch and falls in love with Jesse. However, relationships are not necessarily his forte. So what is a former oyabun to do? He does the most logical thing that he could do of course.He kidnaps Gabriel Reyes.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 77
Kudos: 397





	Desperate Measures

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! 
> 
> I am sorry for disappearing for so long, and hope that you are all keeping safe and well! 
> 
> This story mostly centres on Hanzo and Reyes. I was initially trying to think about what a companion story to "Not your Father" might look like, and have always thought that Gabe and Hanzo would get along, if given the chance. 
> 
> I would love to hear your thoughts if you had the time!

There was very little that Gabriel Reyes truly feared. He faced down demons that haunted him every time he closed his eyes, only to wake to several more once morning arrived. Because of the horror he had seen, and the horror that he helped to create, while Reyes was no coward, he had also not slept well in over a decade. So when he awoke one morning strangely refreshed, oddly rested like he’d not felt since he stopped waking up beside Jack, he knew to be absolutely terrified. 

“Ah. You are awake.” 

Reyes tried to sit up and realized he was already sitting up, tied to a chair. Standing across him—leaning against his desk—was Hanzo Shimada. 

Reaper instinctively tried to wraith. He could not. 

“What the actual _fuck_?!” was all Reyes could manage. 

Hanzo broke eye contact to examine a small device in his hand with appreciation. “I was expecting a more articulate reaction.” 

“Fuck you,” Reyes sneered with great articulation. 

Hanzo snorted. “That’s not what I meant, but perhaps it is to be expected.”

They regarded each other in silence: sizing up weaknesses, determining intention. 

“Let’s just get this over with,” Reaper growled finally. While he was curious about how Shimada had gotten the upper hand on him in his own safehouse, he was even more interested in why the new Overwatch operative was here at all. “Tell me what they want to know so that I can tell you to fuck off again, because whatever it is, you’re not going to get it.” 

Hanzo tilted his head. “How are you so confident that it is intelligence I seek?” 

“Because if you wanted me dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Fair enough,” Shimada nodded and fixed him with a blank stare. Nothing else. 

“…they didn’t send you, did they?” Reyes realized. He would _definitely_ be at Gibraltar by now if they had.

Silence. 

“Are you out for revenge?” Reyes tried. “Because Talon doesn’t know any more about the other Shimadas than you do.” 

Still nothing. 

Reyes had just about had it. “Shit kid, alright you’ve got me. What the fuck are we doing here?”

“I _am_ here for intel,” Shimada confirmed slowly. 

Reaper communicated his impatience as best he could with just his head alone. 

“I require information on wooing Jesse McCree.” 

What. 

“ _What._ ” 

“I am quite certain you heard me.” 

It _sounded_ like a joke. But as far as Reyes knew, the older Shimada didn’t have a sense of humour. Then again, his little shit of a brother didn’t grow up in a vacuum. It had to be a joke. And who uses the word “woo” anymore, anyway?

“Who put you up to this?” Reaper demanded. “It was Morrison, wasn’t it?”

“The soldier was of little help,” Hanzo frowned. “He did mention though that you knew Jesse best.” 

Gabe waited. 

“…and he also knew your coordinates,” Hanzo relented.

“And he also knew my coordinates,” Reaper repeated dryly. He hoped his sarcasm in his voice hid the way his heart was beating traitorously in his ears in response to the news. 

Hanzo took out a tablet and pen, and looked at him expectantly. 

“You’re serious,” Reyes realized. 

Hanzo just blinked at him. 

“You’re _crazy_.” Reyes gaped at him in awe as the truth of the matter finally dawned on him.

Hanzo looked unperturbed. “I am in love Jesse McCree, so I suppose that your assessment is correct.” 

Reyes clenched his teeth to keep himself from laughing. The kid had a point. “And why would I care enough to help you?” he sneered instead. 

“I am betting on the fact that you don’t. Care, that is,” Hanzo clarified. The suggestion struck Reyes in the heart with much more pinpoint precision than any arrow the archer could have aimed. “You do not care about McCree any longer. That much is certain. So it will be nothing to you to help me in exchange for your freedom.” 

“And do I seem like a man that would favour such convenience?” Gabe growled. 

“A man who would trade short term agony, a minor blow to your pride, to play the long game?” Hanzo replied with a small smirk. “Shall I be perfectly honest with you?”

“You got me wrong, kid,” Reyes narrowed his eyes. 

“Do I?” Hanzo asked innocently. “The man who took one hormonal assassin under his wing, and then took in another?”

“Shut up.”

“The man who took the fall entirely for the Venice Incident just so that his team of fugitives could continue to operate unnoticed?”

“No.”

“The man who took the fall for _Overwatch_ so that someday—”

“That. Ain’t. ME.” Reyes voice expanded through the room impossibly, echoing as though they were in a grand hall. 

And Shimada didn’t even flinch. Gabe didn’t know whether to be furious, horrified or impressed. 

Shimada gave him a long, considering look, and Reyes figured that he was being reassessed. He clenched his teeth and braced himself for the new round of bullshit. To his surprise, Shimada pulled back. His shoulders relaxed and he raised the switch that controlled the nanite inhibitor to Reyes’ eye level.

“Perhaps you are right.” 

Reyes tried to hide his surprise. He snorted, and turned his head away. “I’m always right.” 

“You are not the most reliable source on the matter,” Hanzo shrugged, standing. He pressed the button to deactivate the device. “You may go.” 

The asshole had the gall to turn his back to Reyes. Like he wasn’t at all intimidated by the thought of what Reaper could do, should really do right now, actually, given that Shimada had just trespassed on his territory and told the most ridiculous story he’d heard in a long time. 

_The disrespect._

“What.” 

Shimada had already tucked his tablet away and was moving for the door. “I will find another way.” 

“Bullshit you’ll find another way,” Reyes hissed. He stood to loom his shadow over Shimada, who once again, did not seem to least bit bothered by his intimidation tactic. “Who exactly are you going to ask? Ana? Morrison? That useless brother of yours?”

Hanzo snorted. “On that we can agree. He is utterly useless.” 

“No one knows McCree better than I do,” Reyes insisted. 

“Oh?” Hanzo sounded bored. “Prove it.”

“Let’s see what I’m working with first,” Reyes prompted, gesturing with the fingers of one hand. 

Hanzo’s hand paused at the door. He raised an eyebrow and Reyes growled, unholstering his guns and putting them on the table in front of him. 

Shimada nodded, and turned again to face him. Some of his initial confidence seemed to fall away, and Reyes immediately understood why. Intimidation and bravado must have been well-worn paths for the eldest son of a prominent yakuza family. Talking about feelings most definitely was not. Gabe almost felt bad for the man, but then remembered that Shimada had just somehow blindsided him and tied him to a fucking chair. 

“We are good friends. I have tried to invite him to dinner on several occasions and he usually responds with some interest until I suggest a restaurant.”

“Then what?”

“Then he realizes there is something of great importance that he’s forgotten.” Hanzo crossed his arms and his lips turn downward into a reluctant frown.

“These restaurants,” Reyes mused. “They got tablecloths?”

“What?” Hanzo blinked. 

“And a wine list?”

“Of course they do,” Hanzo tilted his head upwards to glare imperiously down at Reyes. “Nothing but the best for—”

“Yeah, neither of those things.” 

Hanzo fell silent, waiting for Reyes to continue. 

“The boy doesn’t have much experience with fancy places. In fact, there was this once in Venice…” Reyes snorted at the memory, but just as quick shook it from his head. “They make him nervous.” 

“I was under the impression that—” 

“—this was where people go for dates?” 

Hanzo shuffled uncomfortably. 

“You’ve been on some of those,” Reyes guessed. Hanzo nodded. “How do they go?”

“…the waitstaff were suffocating and the food was never as good as it cost,” Hanzo admitted. 

“There you go,” Gabe nodded. “It doesn’t have to be fancy. Take him to your favourite place to eat.” 

“It is in Hanamura,” Hanzo protested. 

“Too bad you’re not part of some international organization with access to a private jet.” Reyes rolled his eyes. 

Hanzo fell silent again. His arms were still wrapped tightly around his body like armor and the frowning intensified. There was something else. 

“What?” Reyes sighed irritably. 

“…what if he does not like it?”

Reyes heard the true fear behind the question. The other restaurants Hanzo had chosen in the past had meant little to him. The place that Hanzo was considering now was clearly a place of special significance to him. 

“Then he doesn’t,” Reyes shrugged. “And you try again. Nothing personal against you, kid. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you either.”

Reyes could see Hanzo repeating the words in his head for reassurance. 

“Do as I say, and you’ll be back telling me how right I am.” 

“Very well,” Hanzo stood and gathered his belongings. He tucked the receiver for the nanite inhibitor into his shirt and gave Reyes a small nod before turning towards the door. “We will see if your strategy works. I will see you again in two weeks.” 

“Oh, I know it’ll work,” Gabe called after him. “Wait.” He paused. “Again?!”

As the door closed, Gabe couldn’t help but feel as though he had been conned. Once again, he wasn’t sure whether to feel murderous or impressed. 

\--- 

Two weeks later, Gabe woke up from that same warm, rested slumber to find himself once again tied to a chair in his own fucking safehouse. 

“Ah. You are awake.”

Hanzo was sitting across from him this time in Gabe’s favourite chair.

“How the hell do you keep knocking me out?” That should have sounded far more intimidating, but Reyes was genuinely curious, and, to be honest, a bit amused. 

Hanzo hummed, toying once again with the same device he had last time. “If I told you, I would have to find another way of doing so.” 

“Where the hell did you even get that?” Reaper motioned with his head towards the nanite inhibitor.

“I borrowed it.”

“Borrowed it?” Reyes repeated. 

Hanzo’s eyes flickered up and he looked at Reyes pointedly. 

“Yes. From Akande.”

The information felt like payment of some kind. That Hanzo used Doomfist’s first name did not go unnoticed.

“Ogundimu?”

Hanzo’s lips twitched in mild annoyance at being asked the obvious question and Gabe tried to keep his amusement to himself. 

“Is there any other?”

“Why would Ogundimu lend you a—” Reyes stopped himself, thinking back to the last Talon Council meeting, and the way Doomfist’s eyes had lingered just a second longer than necessary on footage of Shimada scaling a wall. 

“Let me get this straight,” Gabe began slowly. “You’re using Ogundimu’s affection to gain someone _else’s_ affection?”

Hanzo only shrugged. 

Despite himself, Gabe chuckled. “Careful kid, I might just end up liking you.” 

Hanzo snorted, but provided no other answer. There was a long silence that Shimada was supposed to fill, but didn’t.

“Well?” Reaper prompted after the information was not immediately forthcoming. 

“McCree was more receptive to the new restaurant,” Hanzo finally acknowledged.

“Hmph,” Reyes swallowed an ‘I-told-you-so’ with great effort. “So what went wrong?”

“How are you so certain that something went wrong?” Hanzo snapped. His defensiveness suggested that the man was too well-acquainted with thinking that all failures were personal, and perhaps, had even been taught to think so. Reyes’ heart clenched at the familiarity of it. He bit back the first comment that came to mind and changed tack. 

“You wouldn’t have come back otherwise,” he tried instead more neutrally. 

Hanzo huffed and he turned to focus on the far wall with great intensity. 

“Look, I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong.” 

Hanzo nodded once, steeling his resolve. 

“There is nothing wrong. But I need help choosing a Valentine’s Day gift.” 

“Kid,” Reyes’ voice fell even flatter than usual. “It’s November.”

Hanzo nodded again, his eyes narrowing and fixing on Gabe’s. “Yes. I am aware that I am starting late.”

Reyes let his head fall downwards as his only answer. 

“I was considering a gold encrusted—”

“No.” Reaper’s head shot upward. 

“Then perhaps a bottle of fine—” 

“No.”

“That is not helpful,” Hanzo snapped. 

“Start giving me something to work with, and I’ll start being helpful,” Reyes hissed back. 

Hanzo just stared at him blankly. Reaper was beginning to understand his silences. Shimada didn’t know where to start. He sighed. “Do something for him that makes him think of you. In a good way.”

Hanzo took a moment to process this new information and nodded resolutely. “Very well. I will need your phone number.” 

“My _what_.”

“So that I can send you pictures,” Hanzo explained. “Of potential gift ideas.” 

“No.”

“I would have suggested the alternative first, but waking up tied to a chair seems to make you angry,” Hanzo intoned nonchalantly. 

“Give me your fucking phone, you manipulative bastard.” In retrospect, Reyes didn’t sound nearly angry enough. 

Hanzo deactivated the nanite inhibitor and handed Reaper his phone with a smirk. “I will require timely answers.”

So began the series of awkward text messages. They started out few and far between, almost as though Hanzo was hesitating, testing the waters. He gained confidence in December, and the texts arrived weekly. Towards the end of December, the texts arrived daily. The ideas were too expensive, too showy, too _much_. Reyes dismissed them all with a single word.

Gabe figured out that Hanzo was frustrated one day as he was flipping idly through webpages on his phone during one of Ogundimu’s monologues, and Hanzo sent him a picture of a cowboy themed dildo. Reyes slammed his phone on the table immediately and choked back his laughter. 

Doomfist stopped mid-sentence and turned to face him. 

“Do you find this _funny_? My _master_ plan that will guarantee the—”

“Well. It is a little funny,” Sombra cut in, not even looking up from her nail file. 

Ogundimu drew a breath to put Sombra in her place before realizing that he’s never managed to before. Instead, he continued his speech, his eyes focused on Reyes’ mask the entire time. 

Two hours later, from the safety of his own quarters, Gabe dialled the number from which the messages had originated. 

“Hello?” Hanzo answered crisply. 

“You can’t just send me pictures like that out of nowhere,” Reyes growled. 

“I expected that, being a professional, you would only check your messages when it was prudent to do so,” Hanzo replied wryly. 

“It was more interesting than whatever it was Ogundimu was saying.” 

Hanzo snorted. “A low bar.”

“How do you know him, anyway?” Gabe asked, suddenly aware that he didn’t know. 

“It is not worth discussing.” Hanzo’s voice brokered no argument. 

“Then how about discussing how you managed to find a dildo wearing a cowboy hat? And how is that even supposed to fit in—”

“I figured that I could not do any worse.” 

“I told you to get something that reminds him of you. Is your dick cowboy themed?” Reyes demanded. 

There was something that sounded like static on the other end of his phone. Gabe realized Hanzo was laughing. Making others laugh shouldn’t have made his heart warm in the way that it did, he reminded himself, as he did his best to push these feelings away. 

“Look, it doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, it shouldn’t be,” Reyes tried again. 

“I know that.” It now sounded like Hanzo was sulking. 

“Then what’s wrong?”

“…I do not know how to give something value otherwise.” 

“Kid…”

There was no answer. Gabe sighed.

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.” 

“How would you know?” Hanzo’s words were almost sullen, but Gabe heard the need for affirmation trembling just behind Shimada’s defenses. 

“You came back for your brother, didn’t you?” Reyes challenged. “And you didn’t do that for money. There’s other value there.”

Silence.

“And you’re after Jesse McCree,” Gabe reminded him. “Pretty sure he’s kept his life savings under his mattress his whole life.”

Hanzo chuckled and Gabe felt his own shoulders relax at the sound. “Hey, why aren’t you this worried about his Christmas gift?”

“Because I purchased his Christmas gift in March,” Hanzo replied dryly. “Oh.” It sounded as though he just remembered something. 

“What now?” Gabe braced himself for more bullshit.

“Happy holidays.” 

It had been years since anyone had said those words to Reyes. He hadn’t realized he’d missed it until now. 

“Yeah,” Reyes replied lamely. “Same.”

“…Expect more texts.”

“Alright.” 

Hanzo’s well-wishing had somehow made the conversation even more awkward than before. 

“Reaper out,” Reyes grumbled before hanging up, hearing how ridiculous it was only after it was said. 

\--- 

The week before Christmas, Hanzo sent Gabe a link to a pale gold bandana that matched his own hair ribbon. It wasn’t silk, to Gabe’s relief, but was instead made from Japanese cotton, by a small artisan clothmaker that had been producing fabric for centuries. 

_Alright. This one_. Gabe had confirmed by text. 

_Thx._

Reyes did not hear from Hanzo for more than a month (not that he was counting).While he was already avoiding missions where Jesse and Jack were likely to appear, he realized several weeks into the new year that he had inadvertently added Hanzo to the list. It wasn’t a big deal, and likely wasn’t noticed: Hanzo almost only exclusively appeared on the Overwatch roster when Jesse was present anyhow. 

The next time Reyes received the text from Hanzo’s number, he didn’t even make an excuse to exit the room. 

_I’d like to meet._

It was a request, not a command.

Reyes texted back right away.

_When?_

_Next week. Same place?_

_Thursday. 15:00._

_OK._

Gabe arrived at his safe house ten minutes early to find Hanzo already sitting in his favourite chair again. He silently applauded Shimada’s gall. Hanzo looked up as he entered, looking genuinely surprised. 

“Oh. You came.” 

“Yeah.” It hadn’t occurred to Gabe that he could have just _not_ shown, and that it was in fact odd that he had chosen to. This was an incredibly uncomfortable realization.

“Hmph.” Hanzo shrugged off his initial shock. “The gift was well received. Thank you.” 

“Good,” Reyes nodded. He already knew this, of course. There had been footage just a few days into the new year of McCree wearing the scarf. Sombra had just been cackling the other day, after watching him tuck the fabric carefully into his shirt before battle began while she was invisible behind him. 

“It was a smart idea. Fits with his goddamn cowboy cosplay.”

“Thank you,” Hanzo nodded, but shifted uneasily.

Reyes raised an eyebrow.

“Ana recommended it,” Hanzo explained. “She mentioned that she’s only ever seen him with his current bandana, but has also never seen him without it.” 

The confession (and it did somehow feel like a confession) made something clench in Gabe’s chest.  
“Oh.” 

“She is perceptive,” Hanzo continued. “She noticed my attention and was not as averse to it as I had imagined.” 

“Right,” Reyes nodded. 

They shared an awkward silence. 

“I guess you won’t be needing to meet me any—”

“No!” Hanzo interjected, but immediately looked abashed. “I will still require your aid.”

“Yeah?” Gabe hoped he didn’t look up too eagerly. 

Hanzo nodded, his reaction also just a bit too quick. 

As Gabe almost expected by now, it was followed by silence. 

Gabe sighed, sat down heavily on his bed, and waited. 

“What is it this time?”

“…I would like to suggest to McCree that our relationship should be an exclusive one,” Hanzo finally replied with great hesitation. 

“Isn’t it?”

“I have always acted as though it were so.” 

“But he’s doesn’t?” Gabe felt an odd rush of protectiveness for Shimada. 

“I have brought it up before. Tentatively,” Hanzo frowned. “He has dodged the topic every time.” 

“The boy’s a bit squeamish around commitment,” Reyes mused. “He’s been burned.” 

“I have no intention of doing so.” There was a soft tremble underneath Hanzo’s voice for those who knew to listen. He was scared. 

Reyes softened. 

“I know that,” he shrugs. “Hell, the ingrate probably knows that too. But he’s wary of commitment. Part of that’s probably my fault.” 

Gabe felt a sharp sting in his chest, as his words rang truer than he had wanted. 

Hanzo shook his head. “Jesse has great admiration for you, despite what you’ve done.” 

“But the point is that I still did it,” Reyes chuckled darkly. 

“He has admitted to me that he would not be half the man that he is today without you. That is not something so easily erased by any deed thereafter.” 

Gabe turned his head up sharply. Hanzo’s expression was open, if forcibly so. He wasn’t lying. 

“Doesn’t solve your problem though,” Gabe tried to change the subject. 

“No. It doesn’t.” Hanzo folded his arms crossly. “You are supposed to do that.” 

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Gabe snapped. 

“And why that might be I cannot imagine.” Hanzo tilted his chin to face away from Reyes. There was a new edge to his voice. 

“Look. If you want my help, you’re going to have to talk straight.” 

“I have never once in my life been straight.” 

Gabe laughed. “That makes two of us.” 

That brought a small smile to Hanzo’s face, but it was not entirely sincere. “Talon has a file on me, I am certain,” Hanzo explained with some reluctance. “And you have read it. You would not be helping if you still cared for McCree. What father would want such a match for his son?”

The shock of hearing Hanzo’s call him McCree’s father did not distract Gabe from the subtle crack in Hanzo’s voice. He frowned and decided to address the latter issue. He could correct Hanzo later. 

“If the ingrate didn’t like you, you wouldn’t have gotten this far.”

Hanzo wouldn’t meet him in the eye, but Reyes could tell that he was listening closely. 

“McCree wears his heart on his sleeve, and you read people well. Does he seem uninterested?”

“…that wasn’t my question,” Hanzo huffed. 

“No, that wasn’t the question you asked,” Gabe corrected. “It’s still the one on your mind.” 

“You presume much.” While there was no perceptible change to Shimada’s body language, Gabe had seen enough of it to know that he was sulking again. 

“That doesn’t mean I’m wrong though.” 

Hanzo didn’t answer, which was the answer itself. Reyes smirked. 

“Sit him down. Talk to him. He’ll listen if he knows it’s important to you.” 

Hanzo furrowed his brow, processing the information. 

“Very well,” he finally agreed. “But I will need help with the conversation.” 

“No, you don’t. And even if you didn’t I don’t have time for—”

Fifteen minutes later, Hanzo had convinced Gabe to call in a favour with Sombra. When he did two days after that, Sombra didn’t even seem surprised. More specifically, she had already rigged out a van and had the surveillance equipment on her person. 

“How did—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sombra waved off her concern as she handed him the mics. “So when are we going?”

“’We’?” This was a bad sign.

“Friday nights here are boring,” Sombra answered brightly. “Consider it payment. I’ll bring popcorn.” 

Reyes hissed through his teeth and wondered how it was that he had lost control over his life so badly. 

\--- 

The Friday after, he and Sombra set up in their surveillance van across the street from Hanzo’s chosen restaurant. The kid had learned _something_ , Gabe mused to himself. It was a quiet location and wasn’t too flashy. 

Hanzo had accepted the wire without question. 

“You realize how ridiculous this is, right?” Reyes had muttered. 

“I knew this was ridiculous the first time I tied you to your own chair,” Hanzo huffed. “In our line of work, it is a rarity when relationships are not begun through absurd means. Friendships too, for that matter,” Hanzo added, averting his eyes. 

Gabe didn’t really know what to say to that. 

“Just try not to kill him,” he managed at last. 

Hanzo smiled. “No promises.” 

Gabe clasped his hand on Hanzo’s shoulder and gave him an awkward pat before turning for the van.  
They did not have visual, although Sombra was more than prepared for it. Gabe refused to set up cameras despite her wheedling, insisting that it wasn’t necessary.

True to her word, Sombra had brought popcorn.

The first part of the evening went incredibly well. Hanzo and Jesse clearly had great rapport, and Gabe couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride that Shimada, and to be fair, Jesse as well, hadn’t fucked this up. 

A second round of drinks arrived, and Hanzo carefully made his move. Reyes knew it right away: he recognized the slight shift in Hanzo’s tone of voice. The kid was terrified. 

“Jesse.” 

“Sweetpea?” McCree replied smoothly. Gabe could picture the playful smile that accompanied these words and rolled his eyes. 

“Have you given more thought to our relationship?” Shimada asked lightly. 

There was a long pause, and then a firm clunk of a beer glass hitting the table. 

“Don’t know that we need to attach any labels to what we’re doin’ here,” McCree finally answered. “Probably for the best that we don’t.” 

“Oh.”

Gabe didn’t realize had stood until Sombra pressed hard on his shoulder, forcing him back down into his seat. 

“As much as I’d like to see you rush in there to punch some sense into both these losers, maybe you should try that $1000 mic first.” 

He shot Sombra a glare and pressed a button on the mic to transmit. 

“Don’t take that bullshit answer, Shimada. Interrogate.” 

“Come on, boss, he’s not trying to shake him down for intel,” Sombra rolled her eyes.

“May I ask why?” Hanzo asked, luckily with more tact that Reyes had suggested. 

“Just…safer that way,” Jesse offered without conviction. 

“Excuse my bluntness, but you are hardly known for ‘playing it safe’,” Hanzo replied dryly. 

McCree laughed. “Fair point.” 

“So…” Hanzo was at a loss again. 

“Guilt him,” Sombra called out.

“What.” 

Sombra translocated across the van and leaned into the mic. “Guilt-trip his ass.” 

“Get away from that,” Reyes snarled, using his elbow to push her back. 

“…is it perhaps that you cannot see a future with me?” Hanzo asked. His voice contained just enough of a tremble for Gabe to know it wasn’t a tactic: his vulnerability was real. 

“What? No. No, darlin’ that’s not it at all,” Jesse rushed his reply. There was a shuffling sound as McCree likely reached across the table to grab Hanzo’s hand. “I’m just no good at this, is all.” 

“You are good enough for me.” There was once again an open honesty to Hanzo’s tone. 

“Honeybee, you can’t just go ‘round sayin’ shit like that,” Jesse laughed, likely blushing.

“It’s true,” Hanzo insisted. 

“I just…wish I could be better at this,” Jesse finally confessed. “Seems like I’ve messed up every relationship in my life, romantic or otherwise.” 

“That’s not true,” Reyes huffed. 

“That is not true,” Hanzo repeated. 

“Hanzo, you…feel like home to me.” 

There was a long-drawn silence, both over the comms and in the van itself. Reyes was pretty sure that both he and Sombra had stopped breathing. 

“But the last time I thought I found a home, when Reyes recruited me for Blackwatch, I found out that home was a lie. And it felt a lot like my fault.” 

Sombra whistled long and low. Gabe turned to fix his gaze on her, and she raised both hands, stepping backwards until she was back in her original seat on the other side of the van. 

“I know it wasn’t personal,” McCree continued. “Hell, I know we weren’t even actual family. But…when he left, it hurt.” 

“It wasn’t my intention,” Gabe muttered, more to thin air than to Jesse. 

“It wasn’t his intention.” 

Gabe sat up, hearing his own words spoken back to him. 

“How would you know?” Jesse snorted. 

“Call it intuition,” Hanzo replied smoothly. “The intuition of a man who has in many ways walked a similar path.” 

Huh. The kid wasn’t wrong. 

“Intention or not, it hurt. I know it shouldn’t have. But it did.” Jesse’s voice had taken upon that soft reluctance that Gabe had only heard on rare occasion. He winced. 

“It’s bigger than you, kid,” Gabe sighed, lifting a hand to his temple. “I told you that the week you joined up that a time like that might come.” 

Hanzo repeated the sentiment again, more or less. From her side of the van, Sombra was pretending to file her nails, but Gabe knew better. 

“I had to go where you couldn’t follow.”

”I believed that I had to go where Genji could not follow. Perhaps Reyes felt the same.”

“At the time it seemed like the only way.” 

”At the time, it seemed like the only way.”

There was a long pause. 

“Were you to do it again,” Jesse began again with something in his voice that Gabe couldn’t quite place. “Would you do it the same?”

Gabe blinked at the dead space in front of him. Sombra’s hand came to a full pause, and her eyes flickered up to study him. 

“I thought I told you not to live your life on hypotheticals,” Gabe grumbled, hoping not to answer.

“Living on hypotheticals is a dangerous pastime,” Hanzo repeatedly slowly. “But if I were to guess…”

“Fuck you, Shimada,” Gabe snapped. 

Sombra cackled, inching forward again. 

“It’s entirely true that I do not have to answer this question of course, but…” Hanzo hummed.

“And don’t you fucking expect me to,” Gabe hissed.

But then, Jesse cut in.

“…yeah?” McCree’s voice teetered on the brink of uncertainty and hope. Gabe had heard this tone before too. Fuck. 

“No,” he said finally, lifting both hands to frame his nose. “It wasn’t worth it.”

“No,” Hanzo echoed. “The cost was too great.” His voice had fallen low to take a timbre so fragile that Gabe knew he was not only repeating the words alone: Hanzo felt the same way as well. 

“It is why I returned.” 

Gabe tilted his head up when Hanzo continued by himself. 

“For redemption. To make right the wrongs that I had committed.”

“Well…I think you’re doin’ a swell job,” Jesse replied smoothly, some of his humour returning. 

Hanzo huffed a small laugh. “Thank you. That is yet to be seen. It is good though to know that it is not too late. That I’ve not yet burned my ties with my family so thoroughly that I could not return. You would agree, would you not? That it is not too late?”

Gabe could see where this was going. He groaned and his head hit the counter in front of him. Sombra was now laughing so hard that she doubled over in her chair. 

“If Reyes were to return, could you forgive him?”

Everything in the surveillance van fell suddenly very still. The air itself seemed to stop moving. 

“Well. Yeah. Of course.” 

The nail file slipped from Sombra’s fingers and clanked harshly on the floor. 

“He’d better have a good and long explanation, and I’d probably wanna punch him a few times, but…he’s family.” 

Gabe turned off the comm. 

“Hey, I was listening to that,” Sombra complained, scrambling to stand. 

“I’ve heard enough,” Reyes growled. “The kid’s got it under control. He doesn’t need me anymore.” 

“No offense, boss, but I don’t know that he ever did,” Sombra rolled her eyes. 

Reyes turned swiftly to spit that he didn’t care, but Sombra cut him off. 

“But that means he asked you because he _wanted_ your help. Sounds like both of them did. And doesn’t that mean more?” 

Gabe crossed his arms, and turned to stare at the wall of the van. 

“We’re going back,” he barked. 

“You always say that. ‘Back’,” Sombra mused, examining her nails again. 

“What of it?” Reyes rolled his eyes. 

“You never say, ‘We’re going home’,” Sombra shrugged. “Where is home for you, boss?”

\---

It had been a bad day. 

His unit had walked straight into an Overwatch ambush. While their skirmish had ended with Jack’s back against the wall, both of Reyes guns pointed squarely in his face, and Gabe couldn’t do it. He couldn’t pull the trigger. He had pictured this exact scenario a hundred times in the past, and each and every time, he told himself it would be easy. And each and every time he had been lying to himself. 

Luckily, all of this had happened out of view, but that didn’t dull the sting of the Molotov cocktail of emotions that had detonated within his chest. Gabe wasn’t sure what hurt worse: that he had been unable a task as simple as killing a man, or that Jack and scrambled away to safety without a single fucking word of acknowledgement.

Reyes kept silent the entire trip back. Once they had returned to base, he wordlessly made his way to his quarters. The others knew better than to interrupt him. 

Once the door had closed, he picked up his phone. His finger hovered over the dial button for what must had been at least fifteen minutes. 

“Hello?” Hanzo answered on the second ring. 

“Hi.” 

“…is everything alright?”

Gabe considered the question seriously. 

“No.” 

There was a long silence.

“The Soldier mentioned that you had met in battle.” 

“Yeah.” 

“You could not kill him.”

No one else would have _dared_ to say that to him directly. Then again, that in itself was probably why he had called Hanzo.

“…no.” 

It was humiliating, admitting the truth, admitting that he had been wrong about himself all along. So many lives had ended by his hand, and yet this one would not.

“Then you are a better man than I.” 

“You can’t mean that,” Reyes grumbled. He was now in the odd spot of wanting to raise Hanzo’s spirits. 

“Of the two of us, only one has managed so far to kill someone he cares for deeply,” Hanzo replied, his voice still gentle, fragile. 

“And only one of us is currently employed by a terrorist organization.” 

“Please,” Hanzo snorted at that. “I had been slitting throats for my yakuza family decades before you failed your first terrorist act.” 

“What do you mean _failed_?” Reyes growled, hackles rising. 

“Your attempt to retrieve the Doomfist Gauntlet is the training tape for new Overwatch recruits. My favourite part was when you were bested by a child,” Hanzo replied smugly. He was enjoying himself, and it was with great surprise that Reyes realized that he was too. He burst into laughter. 

“Look at us. Trying to prove we’re the bigger asshole.” 

“I assure you, I have it on Genji’s authority that it is me.” 

“And I have it on Ogundimu’s.”

“Well, obviously he would belittle you if given the choice. He’s always had a blind spot when it came to—”

“Just how do you _know each other_?” 

It wasn’t even a matter of pragmatism anymore. The mystery was _killing_ Gabe. 

“It is not worth mentioning.” 

“You can’t just say that and expect me—”

“Hold on. There is someone on the other line.” 

“Fuck you, Shimada, don’t use that bullshit on me!”

Hanzo was openly laughing now as well. 

“…I feel better,” Reyes offered reluctantly after their laughter subsided. “Thank you.” 

“Good.” Hanzo sounded genuinely pleased. 

“How’s it going with the ingrate?” Reyes tried after some time. He knew he should just end the conversation, but found that didn’t really want to. 

“Well.” Hanzo replied. “I could use your help though with another task.” 

“Oh?” Gabe hoped he didn’t sound as eager as he felt.

“When can you meet?”

“This coming Saturday. 10:00.”

“Very well,” Hanzo confirmed. “I will see you then.” 

While the conversation itself already made Gabe feel much better, knowing that he would get to meet with Hanzo again helped more than he would like to admit as well. 

\--- 

Gabe once again arrived at his safehouse early. Finding Hanzo already sitting in his favourite chair was no surprise. Seeing Jesse McCree standing beside him was. 

“What.” 

“Now there’s a look I remember fondly,” Jesse chuckled. 

“You can’t even see my face,” Reyes growled. 

“Don’t have to.”

“I’m just shocked that you managed to arrive at a meeting before me for once,” Gabe shot back.

Jesse shrugged and leaned down to nuzzle Hanzo’s ear. Hanzo squirmed, but did not stop him. Jesse was overjoyed by this reaction, and saw this as an invitation to lean down and kiss Hanzo on the cheek. 

“What can I say? Honeybee’s been a good influence. I heard you’ve been a good influence on him too,” Jesse added, standing again to look at Gabe with interest. 

“Hmph.” Gabe crossed his arms and turned away, refusing to answer. “What do you two need now?” 

“Nothing,” Hanzo replied. 

“What.” 

“We’re just here to say thank you,” That wide familiar smile spread easily across Jesse’s features and Reyes felt his heart warm ever so slightly, knowing that this smile was once again meant for him. 

“Oh?”

Hanzo nodded and also stood. “I would not have been as successful in wooing Jesse without your help.” 

“You would have done fine,” Reyes rolled his eyes. 

“Perhaps,” Hanzo acknowledged. “But perhaps not. I have been told that I am…stubborn.” 

Both Jesse and Gabe snorted in an identical manner at that. 

Hanzo shot them a scowl. “My point is that I tend to require aid when it comes to matters of the heart.” 

“Aww, babe, am I a matter of your heart?” Jesse cooed. 

“May I remind you that I could kill you five different ways right now with my bare hands,” Hanzo retorted. However, his face had turned bright crimson. Jesse beamed. 

“But you wouldn’t!”

“Try me.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Reyes leaned his forehead against the wall. “Is there anything else worthwhile that either of you want to say?” 

“Naw,” Jesse shook his head and turned his attention back to Gabe, that smile only growing ever wider. “Figure there’ll be plenty of time for that.” 

Hanzo hummed in acknowledgement. He gave Gabe a brief nod and turned for the door. 

“Hmph.” Gabe turned to them again, instantly suspicious. They were leaving too easily. 

“Be seein’ you real soon boss,” Jesse shot him a finger gun, and threw an arm around Hanzo’s shoulder. It was then that Gabe saw that damn device in Hanzo’s hand. It was on. 

“Wait. What.” 

The door opened and Jack Morrison walked through it, mask-less, smirking. 

“You little shit,” Gabe snarled at Hanzo. 

Hanzo just shrugged, unaffected by his anger. “I figured that I should return the favour.” 

He dropped the nanite inhibitor into Jack’s open hand. 

“You two should talk.” 

“See you back on base!” Jesse called cheerily.

“I am not going back to base!” Gabe roared.

“Hey,” Jack said casually. 

“Fuck you!” 

Morrison laughed and took what Gabe realized in horror he now thought of as Hanzo’s chair. “That’s alright. We’ve got time. Have you given more thought to our relationship?” 

Like so many times since he had met Hanzo, Gabe was finding it hard to stay angry, but for the very first time, he was able to admit that this was fine. There would, after all, be time to get even now tomorrow.


End file.
